Related papers: No second law of entanglement manipulation after a…

We speculate whether the second law of thermodynamics has more to do with Turing machines than steam pipes. It states the logical reversibility of reality as a computation, i.e., the fact that no information is forgotten: nature computes…

We study thermodynamics of entanglement entropy for weakly excited states in certain non-conformal fields theories, whose gravity duals are given by non-conformal Dp-branes. We observe that the entanglement entropy of a sufficiently small…

Thermodynamic relations are derived from first principles of mechanics for non-equilibrium processes. Since the key role herein is played by the law of increase of entropy, the latter is analyzed at first. It is shown that its derivation…

The entropy production rate is a key quantity in non-equilibrium thermodynamics of both classical and quantum processes. No universal theory of entropy production is available to date, which hinders progress towards its full grasping. By…

A recently proposed quantum mechanical criterion `concavity of energy' for the second law of thermodynamics is studied also for classical particle systems confined in a bounded region by a potential with a time-dependent coupling constant.…

Understanding thermodynamics far from equilibrium at the quantum scale remains a fundamental challenge, particularly in the presence of quantum coherence. Here we develop a first-principles framework for nonequilibrium quantum…

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system can only increase over time. This appears to conflict with the reversible evolution of isolated quantum systems under the Schr\"odinger equation, which preserves…

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of a closed system is non-decreasing. Discussing the Second Law in the quantum world poses new challenges and provides new opportunities, involving fundamental…

The first law of thermodynamics, which governs energy conservation, is traditionally formulated as an equality. Surprisingly, we demonstrate that the first law alone implies a universal Landauer-like inequality linking changes in system…

The explanation of the apparent universality of thermodynamics points toward the extension of the usual conceptual background of the second law. Arguments are collected that a basic guiding idea of stability of thermodynamic equilibrium…

It was first suggested by David Z. Albert that the existence of a real, physical non-unitary process (i.e., "collapse") at the quantum level would yield a complete explanation for the Second Law of Thermodynamics (i.e., the increase in…

Recent work using tools from quantum information theory has shown that at the nanoscale where quantum effects become prevalent, there is not one thermodynamical second law but many. Derivations of these laws assume that an experimenter has…

A heat engine undergoes a cyclic operation while in equilibrium with the net result of conversion of heat into work. Quantum effects such as superposition of states can improve an engine's efficiency by breaking detailed balance, but this…

The nature of a physical law is examined, and it is suggested that there may not be any fundamental dynamical laws. This explains the intrinsic indeterminism of quantum theory. The probabilities for transition from a given initial state to…

Completely positive trace preserving maps are essential for the formulation of the second law of thermodynamics. The dynamics of quantum systems, correlated with their environments, are in general not described by such maps. We explore how…

We derive an exact (classical and quantum) expression for the entropy production of a finite system placed in contact with one or several finite reservoirs each of which is initially described by a canonical equilibrium distribution.…

It is argued that a typical many body energy eigenstate has a well defined thermodynamic entropy and that individual eigenstates possess thermodynamic characteristics analogous to those of generic isolated systems. We examine large systems…

Thermodynamics is commonly presented as a theory of macroscopic systems in stable equilibrium, built upon assumptions of extensivity and scaling with system size. In this paper, we present a universal formulation of the elementary…

We propose a new form of the Second Law inequality that defines a tight bound for extractable work from the non-equilibrium quantum state. In classical thermodynamics, the optimal work is given by the difference of free energy, what…

It has long been known that, fundamentally different from a large body of rarefied gas, when a Knudsen gas is immersed in a thermal bath, it may never reach thermal equilibrium. The root cause is nonchaoticity: as the particle-particle…